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  SCOURGE OF WOLVES

  David Gilman

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  About this Book

  About the Author

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  About Scourge of Wolves

  Winter, 1361

  After two decades of conflict, Edward III has finally agreed a treaty with the captive French King, John II. In return for his freedom, John has ceeded vast tracts of territory to the English. But for five long years mercenary bands and belligerent lords have fought over the carcass of his kingdom. They will not give up their hard-won spoils to honour a defeated king’s promises.

  If the English want their prize, they’ll have to fight for it.

  As he battles to enforce Edward’s claim, Thomas Blackstone will see his name blackened, his men slaughtered, his family hunted. He will be betrayed and, once again, he’ll face the might of the French army on the field. But this time there will be no English army at his back. He’ll face the French alone.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Scourge of Wolves

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Character List

  Prologue

  Map: 1391

  Part One: In the King’s Name

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part Two: The Valley of Sighs

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Part Three: Brotherhood of the Sword

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About David Gilman

  About the Master of War series

  Also by David Gilman

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  For Suzy, as always

  And also for my friend James McFarlane, who was there at the beginning and helped shape the words

  After twenty-three years of fighting King Edward III has agreed a treaty and released the French monarch from captivity in England, allowing him to return home. France is in chaos, flayed by mercenary bands, a situation which initially suits Edward as it keeps the French King from regaining control. But the vast tracts of territory gained by the English need to be claimed – by force if necessary. French cities’ and towns’ loyalties cleave them to their own King but reluctantly, one by one, they succumb and agree to be ruled by the English. However, not all towns are so easily convinced. Belligerent lords and self-serving mercenary captains refuse. Thomas Blackstone and the renowned knight and King’s negotiator, Sir John Chandos, are tasked with bringing the recalcitrant defaulters under English control.

  Outnumbered and still hunted by the French, Thomas Blackstone and his men face betrayal and a final suicidal mission.

  CHARACTER LIST

  *Sir Thomas Blackstone

  *Henry: Blackstone’s son

  THOMAS BLACKSTONE’S MEN

  *Sir Gilbert Killbere

  *Meulon: Norman captain

  *John Jacob: captain

  *Perinne: wall builder and soldier

  *Renfred: German man-at-arms and captain

  *Will Longdon: veteran archer and centenar

  *Jack Halfpenny: archer and ventenar

  *Ralph Tait: man-at-arms

  *Quenell: archer and ventenar

  *Beyard: Gascon captain

  *Haskyn: archer

  *Fowler: archer

  *Peter Garland: archer

  *Othon: man-at-arms

  FRENCH NOBLEMEN AND MEN-AT-ARMS

  Count Jean de Tancarville: French Royal Chamberlain and general of the northern army

  Jacques de Bourbon, Count de la Marche, Constable of France

  John de Montfort

  Marshal Jean de Boucicaut; chief French commissioner

  Marshal Arnoul d’Audrehem

  Count de Vaudémont: Royal Lieutenant of Champagne

  Charles de Blois

  Louis de Harcourt: Royal Lieutenant of Normandy

  Jean de Grailly, Captal de Buch: Gascon lord

  *Alain de la Grave

  *Mouton de la Grave: Lord of Sainte-Bernice

  *Guillouic: Breton mercenary

  *Robert de Rabastens

  *Sir Godfrey d’Albinet

  *Bernard de Charité

  *Countess Catherine de Val

  ENGLISH KNIGHTS AND NOBLEMEN

  Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster

  Sir John Chandos

  Sir William Felton: Seneschal of Poitou

  Sir Henry le Scrope: governor of Calais and Guînes

  ENGLISH AND WELSH MERCENARIES

  *William Cade

  James Pipe

  Robert Knolles

  John Amory

  John Cresswell

  *Gruffydd ap Madoc

  ENGLISH ROYALTY

  King Edward III of England

  Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales

  FRENCH ROYALTY

  King John II (the Good) of France

  The Dauphin Charles: the French King’s son and heir

  Charles, King of Navarre: claimant to the French throne, King John’s son-in-law

  ITALIAN ROYALTY, KNIGHTS AND CLERICS

  Joanna, Countess of Provence, Queen of Naples

  Marquis de Montferrat: Piedmontese nobleman

  Count Amadeus VI of Savoy

  *Niccolò Torellini: Florentine priest

  *Fra Pietro Foresti: Knight of the Tau

  ITALIAN ASSASSIN

  Filippo Bascoli

  FRENCH CLERICS, OFFICIALS AND MERCEN
ARIES:

  Pope Innocent VI

  Jean de la Roquetaillade: Franciscan monk

  *Prior Albert: Prior of Saint-André-de-Babineaux

  *Brother Pibrac: monk

  *Brother Dizier: monk

  *Brother Gregory: monk

  Simon Bucy: counsellor

  Hélie Meschin: Gascon mercenary

  * Indicates fictional characters

  PROLOGUE

  Leicester, England

  March 1361

  King Edward III stood at the entrance to the room where Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster, his lifelong friend and adviser, lay dying. Lancaster raised his hand to stop the King from entering his bedchamber, fearing that the plague, which had once again started its journey of death across Europe, had now reached him.

  Edward hesitated. He was blessed by God in victory and peace: should he challenge his own divine good fortune? He strode into the room and pulled an embroidered stool towards his friend’s bed. The servants had been dismissed the moment the King mounted the stairs. The words exchanged between these two old warriors would be as private as any confessional. No whispers were to filter down towards waiting servants.

  ‘No, my lord. I beg you. I know not what ails me but it will take me. Step away.’

  Edward reached out a hand and clasped his friend’s. ‘Age will bear us all away when it is good and ready, Henry. It is all in God’s hands.’

  The dying man wheezed, ‘I am glad it takes me before you, sire. I would not bear the grief were it otherwise.’

  Edward squeezed his friend’s cold fingers. ‘So many battles, so many victories and so many of us leaving less than our own shadow on the land,’ he said.

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘We are never wrong. We are the King,’ said Edward, smiling.

  ‘Ah, were it so, eh? No struggle with our own conscience or with those who would try to defeat us by fair means or foul.’ Lancaster relented and reached out to grip the King’s arm. ‘You bless the realm with a burning sunlight that will cast your shadow across this great nation for lifetimes to come.’

  Edward’s gaze settled with compassion on his ailing friend. How much time was there for any of them? The peace with France was barely delivered; more trials and contests would come their way. But those who had been at Edward’s side since he seized the throne as a boy were becoming fewer and fewer in number. The Duke was one of those few.

  ‘What is it we can do for you?’

  Lancaster shook his head. ‘Nothing for me, Edward. Everything for England.’ Even lying on his deathbed the renowned Duke’s abiding concern was for the nation he had helped Edward build. ‘A month past we saw the portents, the lights in the sky, the eclipse. They say the rain turned to blood in Boulogne. It heralds hard times again, Edward. The pestilence comes more quickly than the dawn. You must look to who can control the territories you have fought so hard for.’

  ‘Our firstborn, Edward, will govern Aquitaine. Lionel will go to Ireland. The Scottish already give us their allegiance.’

  ‘And your sons and those they command will serve you well, but our old fraternity is lost. Brave Northampton is dead; Thomas Holland and Reginald Cobham are ailing and many others are frail, taken one by one as night steals away the day. All gone. And I soon to follow. You have pursued your ambition, Edward. You have achieved greatness for this kingdom and such an inheritance must have its guardian. When the time comes who among the many leads by common consent? A man of loyalty who will speak his mind even at great risk to himself?’

  Lancaster gave Edward a querying look. The King knew full well of whom he spoke.

  ‘Blackstone,’ said the King quietly.

  Lancaster smiled. ‘As you said, dear friend. You are never wrong.’

  1361

  FROM SAINT-AUBIN-LA-FÈRE TO CALAIS

  PART ONE

  IN THE KING’S NAME

  Limousin France

  December 1361

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thomas Blackstone’s men rode to their deaths.

  As they eased their horses through the town’s narrow streets Sir Gilbert Killbere watched the townspeople who moments before had cheered their arrival. Now, their faces filled with panic, some quickly turned away; others scuttled behind pillars. Killbere knew immediately that he and his men had been lured into a trap by the ill-named Breton lord, Bernard de Charité, who commanded the citadel of Saint-Aubin-la-Fère. Before he could call out a warning crossbowmen appeared on the walls and the first bolts struck home. Horses reared; men fell. An animal-like cry then soared up from the citizens as lust for the Englishmen’s death twisted their features anew. Some dared to dash forward onto the bloodied ground and seize the fallen men’s weapons. Soldiers appeared from the side streets and shop doorways and roughly pushed the townsmen aside to plunge sword and knife into Blackstone’s wounded and dying men.

  Killbere heeled his mount as his sword slashed two soldiers reaching up for him. Swinging the blade in swift practised arcs he slew three more as his war horse kicked and turned. Killbere was no stranger to the mêlée of war. He had fought at Blackstone’s side since the boy became a man and together they had taken part in every great battle and victory the English had secured in France and Italy. Now he was going to die in a piss-stinking alleyway.

  Swordsmen, jabbing low, thrust their blades deep into his horse’s flanks and chest. The wild-eyed animal bellowed in pain and Killbere cursed as he crashed down into the mud. Desperately trying to parry the blows that assaulted him, he ripped his shield free from its saddle ties and rammed his sword upwards into the groin of one of his attackers. In his agony the man barged into the others while Killbere, twisting, managed to haul the shield across his body. He felt the heavy impact as a mace slammed into it. A blade jabbed at his side; slithering away, he struck out at the man’s ankles and felt the steel cut deeply through unprotected flesh. The man fell, writhing, further obstructing the attackers, his screams joining the cacophony that echoed off the town’s walls.

  One of the attackers threw himself across Killbere’s shield, smothering him with his weight as others grabbed his arms and yanked him upright. They had him now. Sweat and blood stung his eyes. He saw Blackstone’s men going down from the overwhelming assault. Jack Halfpenny’s archers had had no chance to unsheathe their war bows so the battle-hardened men, the backbone of King Edward’s army, fought with archer’s knife, sword and raw courage. An English archer’s bow was of little use in such a confined place. Crossbowmen were better suited to close-quarter ambush and de Charité had used them well. Killbere saw the young ventenar jig left and right, crying out for the twenty archers he commanded to fall back, but most were already dead or dying so Halfpenny made one last desperate assault on the two men who cornered him. His archer’s strength gave him the advantage and he smashed his left fist into one man’s face, half turned on his heel and slashed the long archer’s knife across the other’s throat. Killbere struggled, brought up an elbow and felt bone break in his captor’s face. In that split second he saw Halfpenny take a stride towards him. The lad was already wounded in his side but, seeing Killbere being held, was coming to his aide.

  ‘No!’ bellowed Killbere. ‘Get Thomas!’ The warning shout was barely out when those who held him clubbed him to the ground. The last thing Killbere saw before a sickening darkness engulfed him was Jack Halfpenny running for his life. If anyone had a chance to escape it was the lithe archer. That, at least, gave the old fighter a sense of satisfaction.

  * * *

  By nightfall the lifeless bodies of Thomas Blackstone’s men hung from the gibbet in the town’s square. Every man displayed evidence of the wounds resulting from the betrayal and ambush by the town’s lord. Shadows danced in the torchlight as Saint-Aubin’s men and women, relieved from the usual curfew, were permitted to desecrate the dead with knives and staves, making the corpses sway from the assault. Nineteen more of Blackstone’s fighters dangled outside of the high town walls as a warning from Bern
ard de Charité.

  Halfpenny had escaped the slaughter amid a hue and cry that echoed around the walls. Clasping a hand over the wound in his side he had forced himself to run hard and fast despite the pain through the labyrinthine alleys until he found a niche in a wall that he could just squeeze into. When darkness fell he had concealed his bow in a narrow crevice between pillar and lintel. It had been his father’s war bow and its heartwood that had bent beneath father and son’s hand was as precious to Jack Halfpenny as the memory of the man who had taught him to use it. Pushing aside his regret he made his way through the shadows until he reached the high walls. Once the night watch had turned their backs to cheer the brutality being inflicted on the corpses in the square below, he skirted the parapet. Grasping the hemp rope that held the dangling body of one of his men on the outside wall he lowered himself twenty feet down. The corpse sagged as Halfpenny clutched at its clothing. Dried blood soiled the gaping mouth and swollen tongue, half severed by its teeth when the noose tightened. Halfpenny turned his face away from the man he had once commanded, hoping his weight would not tear the man’s head from his neck as he slithered down the body, using it to gain extra length before having to release his grip and plunge into the dense briar patch thirty feet below. He prayed that the scattered moonlight did not conceal rocks beneath the thick foliage as he let go of the dead man and fell into the night.

  * * *

  The following day’s weak sun failed to burn away the mist that clung to the frost-covered land. Ignoring the morning chill and the skin-splitting roughness of the stone they handled, Perinne and Meulon worked alongside their men to heft stone onto the defensive wall of a ruined building. The rising ground gave the derelict barn a commanding position over the surrounding countryside. They were twelve miles from where the ambush took place in Saint-Aubin-la-Fère and even though the shelter was temporary Blackstone had demanded a low defensive wall be built. He and his men were tasked by the King’s negotiator, Sir John Chandos, with securing towns ceded to King Edward in the peace treaty. At each village or town the burghers were called upon to pledge their allegiance to the English King. Some bemoaned what was asked of them, but eventually agreed when they gazed down from their walls at the battle-hardened men who made the demand. Others quickly saw the advantage of being under the protection of a strong warrior king while their own recently released monarch languished in Paris, bankrupt and sorely pressed to keep control over what was left of his kingdom. France was soured by destroyed crops, poisoned wells and the bitterness of defeat. Mercenaries who had fought on both sides of the war ravaged what little food and supplies remained. There were some French lords who resisted handing over their towns to Blackstone and Chandos until money was exchanged, at which point French loyalties were switched with remarkable ease. Those who resisted most fiercely were mercenaries who served the Breton lords. A civil war was raging in Brittany and lands as far south as the Limousin and Poitou were held by each of the warring factions. Saint-Aubin-la-Fère was one such town. Payment had been agreed for the Breton lord to turn over the town and for the burghers to swear allegiance to the English Crown. Sir Gilbert Killbere had taken twenty archers and as many hobelars into the fortified town to deliver the payment and receive their signed agreement.